Globalization in Ecuadorian Amazon

Globalization in Ecuador

by James Ficklin, Quito Ecuador, Jan 7, 2005

The situation here in Ecuador is dire. Oil drilling and road building are about to begin in the world's most biodiverse rain-forest on the planet, in the northwest Amazon - in the heart of Yasuni National Park, along the Tiputini River in Ecuador. Yasuni seems to be a National Park in name only. There has already been one road built through it by a Texas oil company called Maxus, 12 years ago. This is ancestral territory of the Huarani Indians, who have been culturally decimated by American Evangelists (funded by Rockefellor grant money) & Catholic missionaries who have historically worked hand in hand with Oil Companies. The companies needed to pacify the "savage" indians before stealing their land and contaminating their water. (See Joe Kane´s book "Savages" published by Knopf) Nelson Rockefellor and Standard Oil figured out this scheme over a half century ago. ( See "Thy Will Be Done, the Conquest of the Amazon" by Colby & Dennett, HarperCollins)

After 32 years of oil exploitation, and even longer of missionaries and corporate globalization disguised as “development”, this country is rampant with despair, poverty and pollution. There is plenty of graffiti in the city of Quito denouncing the current free trade agreement called "TLC", for TRATADO DE LIBRE COMERCIO or “Free Trade Agreement”. My favorite spray painted message that is common on blank walls and sides of buildings here says: " menos TLC - mas THC" (less TLC - more THC") The TLC is a Thanks to massive protests against the FTAA (or ALCA in Spanish) in Quebec, Quito and most recently Miami, The corporatocracy has changed strategy and has come up with smaller, regional free trade agreements instead of the hemisphere–wide scope of FTAA or ALCA. For an Ecuadoran analysis of the TLC see: http://www.ecuador.indymedia.org/es/2004/12/7421.shtml.

The TLC would further the global corporate empire, or "corporatocracy" as John Perkins calls it in his recent bestseller "Confessions of an Economic Hitman". Perkins should know, he was one of the main empire builders who negotiated massive development loans to countries such as Ecuador, Indonesia, Panama, Iran and Columbia. see http://www.JohnPerkins.org

The purpose of these loans was, and is still, twofold. First off, the loans enrich American Corporations such as Bechtel, Haliburton and others, who win giant construction contracts, to build Dams, pipelines, roads and electrical power grids, all paid for by World Bank, IMF, or USAID loans whereby the money is transfered from the Washington DC based development banks, straight into the US corporations bank account, often without even leaving DC.

The developing country then is saddled with debt, while only seeing a small percent of the cash (which is meant to pay-off the corruptible leaders of that country.) So the second purpose is simply to enslave the poor country in massive debt. Since the loans are so large, they are never expected to pay them off. The whole idea is to thereby gain access and ultimate control of the countries resources, as well as their economy and government policy.

Most leaders of Ecuador have happily taken the generous international bank loan/ bribes and allowed the corporations to have their way in the Amazon, some have even taken the money with them into exile in Panama and Miami. One president, Jaime Roldós, who failed to accept the lucrative bribes/loans, and actually attempted regulate the oil companies, kick out the missionaries and help the poor; was mysteriously killed in a fiery helicopter explosion that was widely blamed on the CIA. John Perkins explains how the CIA “jackals” step in like mafia thugs whenever “Economic Hitmen” fail to persuade leaders to accept the deals of the corporatocracy.

In Ecuador the result has meant cheap oil for US and other multinationals with minimal regulations. Unfortunately, most of this oil is located under the lush Amazon Rainforest on the East slope of the Andes Mountains , which has already led to an environmental catastrophe. Now they are about to open up thousands of acres of pristine rainforest to oil drilling and road building, especially under Yasuni National Park where massive oil fields have been discovered. Also in the Indigenous territories of Pastaza, where Shuar Indians and Quicha from Sarayacu have vowed to fight, with guns if necessary, to protect their homes from the corporate invaders. The Ecuadorian military, with help from the US special forces counter-insurgency specialists, have set up a new base in the jungle close to the village of Sarayacu, while a new road is proposed into an existing drilling site (Villano) only 13 kilometers to the east.

A newly completed pipeline (the OCP) that runs from the Amazon over the Andes and out to the Pacifc Ocean at the port of Esmeraldas, where the tankers are lined up waiting to be filled and head north to Los Angeles or San Francisco Bay Area. But the pipeline and is only running at one third capacity. The consortium of multinational oil companies and banks who built the high tech OCP pipeline, amidst constant grass-roots resistance, are now anxious to fill it with Amazonian crude, and therefore the pressure is increasing to open up new oil fields in the untouched rainforest.

The TLC will surely worsen this situation, due to it’s neoliberal, pro-deregulation, pro-privatization, pro-corporate bias . A photograph on the cover of an anti-TLC pamphlet I picked up today, is compelling and disturbing. It shows the naked body of a pregnant woman painted entirely in solid Yellow, Red and Blue, the colors of the of the Ecuadorian flag. Around her neck is a noose and in her two hands she holds the rope, it suggests that if she (Ecuador) pulls the rope, she will hang herself. The Text Reads:

“TLC Ecuador: El futuro no se impone, se construye”
which translates: “The future is not imposed on us, we create it”